Douglas Barrie/LONDON
DAIMLER-BENZ Aerospace (DASA) has rebuffed an UK Government-brokered compromise solution to the highly charged problem of work-share on the four-nation Eurofighter combat-aircraft programme.
The UK proposal offered a trade-off on management restructuring in exchange for allowing DASA to maintain a higher level of work-share. DASA, supported by the German Government, rejected the proposal, say political sources.
Under the UK proposal, British Aerospace would have taken the management lead on the programme, perhaps by acquiring Eurofighter GMBH.
The work-share issue has to be resolved before the four nations - Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK - can sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) covering production of the EF2000.
With the schedule for signing the MoU already tight, there is concern that more hold-ups in resolving this issue could further defer deliveries of the already-delayed aircraft.
Problems over work-share have arisen because Germany has almost halved the number of EF2000s it intends to buy. Under the original MoU, production work-share was directly proportional to aircraft off-take.
With a German requirement for only 140 aircraft, rather than the original 250, this would have provided Germany with a 23% work-share, while the UK would have 42%, a figure, which is proving unacceptable to DASA.
Whitehall sources say that, while the UK is sympathetic to DASA's position, there needs to be a quid pro quo. A radical reduction in DASA's production requirement is considered to be politically "problematic" in Germany.
The UK, however, would find it just as difficult to justify relinquishing an element of its work-share, merely to keep Germany happy.
Officials from both countries are searching for another compromise. Linkage, however, between the EF2000 and the Future Large Aircraft programme, in which Germany and the UK are participants, has been ruled out.
"Linkage was not viewed as a good suggestion," says a Whitehall source. "It is intended to be run as a commercial programme, so we did not want to compromise this."
An Eurofighter board of directors meeting is being held in Munich during the week of 2 October, with the work-share issue certain to be high on the agenda.
Source: Flight International
